Rocksmith Review

Rocksmith is not for everyone, but for those looking to begin the lifelong journey of learning to play guitar, I highly recommend this game. Despite my problems with the interface, Rocksmith does of a solid job of teaching the basics and will quickly have you playing along with some of the world's greatest artists.

The Pros

Works with ANY 6-string electric guitar.

Tuner, Amp and Effects are included in the game.

Challenging minigames that help develop real skills.

Automatic difficulty works with your skill level.

Fun Songs to learn.

The Cons

Learning guitar takes a lot time, patience and practice.

Interface can be challenging to follow.

Audio lag on digital systems.

Should come with chord books and lessons to work on outside the game.

Rocksmith Review:

I’ve been a passionate fan of guitar based rhythm games since they first hit consoles in 2005, but as a longtime guitarist, I’ve always felt guilty about spending insane amounts of time mock rocking on a plastic axe instead of putting those hours into my real guitars. After all, if I’m going to spend days on end virtually shredding, I might as well get something out of it. Fortunately, with the introduction of Ubisoft's Rocksmith, that’s all about to change.

Earlier this year, Rock Band 3’s Fender Squier Pro Stratocaster introduced the idea of playing a real guitar with a rhythm game. However, it had its limitations and required a very specialized instrument. Rocksmith takes this concept much further by allowing the use of ANY electric six-string to play the game. This opens Rocksmith up to anyone who happens to have an electric guitar that’s been gathering dust in a closet. And unlike Rock Band’s guitar, you don’t need a midi converter to make it work.

Included with every copy of Rocksmith is a heavy duty ¼" to USB cable that magically converts an analog guitar signal into a digital one that can be read by the game. That’s all you need to get started on your quest to become the next Guitar World cover boy or girl. The game even comes with a slew of classic amplifiers and effects built in so you can turn your television into a full fledged guitar rig.

In my opinion, calling Rocksmith a game is misleading. Yes, it has achievements and awards you points, but it actually has much more in common with an exercise game than it does Guitar Hero. There are no avatars to customize, no gods of rock to conquer and no quest for greatness to complete. This is a niche product with one purpose: teach you to play guitar. If you’re looking for a quick jaunt through rock ‘n’ roll history filled with flash and fury and finger cramps on the way to the top of the leaderboards, you can stop reading now, because Rocksmith is not for you.

Rocksmith is designed from the ground up as a learning tool. When firing up the game for the first time, it walks you through the basics of holding a guitar and eliciting musical sounds from it. The first thing you’ll do is tune your axe with the in game chromatic tuner. Right away you’ll notice how quickly and accurately it tracks the pitch of the notes you play. Next, it will slowly guide you through the basics of how to fret notes and how to follow Rocksmith’s own unique brand of the “note highway” you’ve seen in other rhythm games. Within moments you’ll start playing the notes to the main riff of The Rolling Stones classic, "(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction." While this slow build to actually jumping into the game will be tedious for a seasoned guitarist, this is the perfect way to get a newcomer excited about playing. When it comes to learning an instrument, nothing is more satisfying than teaching yourself how to play something you’ve heard on the radio for the first time and Rocksmith makes sure you know that feeling right away.

Once you begin your journey in the game’s career mode you’ll see that the focus here is on substance over style. Nothing about the menus or concert venues is flashy. Instead, the game is focused on guiding you through the process of learning to play as you quickly tackle new songs and techniques. And thanks to the automatic difficulty adjustment, you’ll never be in over your head. As you play, Rocksmith constantly scales the difficulty to your level. This is fantastic training for a budding guitarist since it gives you a constant challenge without pushing you over the edge. And unlike other rhythm games, it doesn’t ever discourage you with booing crowds or broken notes when you fall behind in a song. For seasoned guitarists, this slow climb to the top will feel like a grind, but Rocksmith isn’t a shred simulator, it’s a guitar teacher and should be viewed as such.

I highly encourage those learning as they play to take the time to go through the technique training sequences as they are recommended to you. Each of them features short, clear videos that explain the concepts they are teaching in an easy to understand manner. In addition to basic chords, Rocksmith will show you essential tricks of the trade like string bending, palm muting, tremolo picking, harmonics and slides. In addition, there a variety of fun mini games in the Guitarcade that you’ll unlock along the way that will help you really work on perfecting these skills in a very fun and unique way. For example, you can increase your chord vocabulary while shooting zombies, hit homeruns with string bends, and diffuse bombs with harmonics.

There are 8 mini games in all for you to unlock and each of them provide a useful and engaging way to practice and hone your technique in a way totally unique to Rocksmith. One piece of advice for beginners, remember to take it easy for the first couple of days as you begin to build calluses on your fingertips. The small pain will quickly lead to pleasure once you toughen up those dainty digits.

Of course, learning techniques isn’t as fun as learning songs. Fortunately, Rocksmith is filled to the brim with a wide variety of genres and styles. Right away you can choose to play classics from A-list artists like Nirvana, Cream, Lynyrd Skynyrd, David Bowie and Muse. No song is locked at the start, but I recommend sticking to the career path suggestions if you are learning as you go since some songs are a lot easier to play than others. Remember, even Hendrix had to crawl before he could walk and play with his teeth. Some might complain about the lack of certain bands or genres, specifically metal, but there’s an in game store with the promise of future DLC to round out the repertoire.

Rocksmith also features a multiplayer mode. This requires an additional electric guitar and ¼” to USB cable in order to make it work, but offers a fun way to rock out with a friend. The game splits the screen horizontally and amazingly has no problem tracking two guitars. It also scales the difficulty to both player’s individual skill levels which means that no one will get left behind. If you’re able to, I recommend trying this mode out because jamming with friends is not only fun, but is a great way to learn and push yourself to get better.

I've Got Blisters On Me Fingers

There is a lot that Rocksmith does right, but it isn’t perfect. First, there is a slight lag in the audio when playing, especially if you’re using an HDMI hookup. The game recommends using an analog audio output and after testing both options, I agree. However, my personal home system is not set up for this and I am sure many other users will run into the same problem. The good news is the lag didn’t affect my ability to play the game, but the slight delay between hitting a note and hearing it come out of your TV will be a distraction for some.

Another problem I have with the game is the interface. While it is clean and easy to follow what is going on, I wish they varied the colors of the note blocks a little more. I often found myself confusing the orange and yellow blocks in the heat of the moment. Also, I think that having an option to embed the fret numbers into the note blocks so that it looks more like standard guitar tablature would be extremely helpful. Rock Band’s pro modes have this as an option called “Chord Numbering” and I found it to make playing that game much easier. I really feel that Rocksmith would benefit from this greatly as well. Learning guitar is tough and the more “play by numbers” action you can give someone, the better.

In addition, having spent so much of my life reading guitar tabs, I had to play with the “invert” mode turned on. In the standard mode all the chord shapes looked upside down to me and I believe that any other guitarist who is used to reading standard tab notation is going to run into the same problem. Finally, the interface would benefit from clearer and easier to read feedback. The angled and transparent white text that lets you know when you’ve nailed or failed a phrase is hard to read when you’re busy trying to pay attention to the notes coming at you. Feedback in a game like this is very valuable and I wish that I could more easily see when I am on a hot streak or need to find the beat.

My last complaint about the game is that I wish it came with some supplemental material to help bolster learning when you aren’t plugged in. A chord book and tabs for the songs in the game would really help new players get on their feet. When playing Rocksmith, it is very hard to take a peek at where your hands are on the guitar neck and keep up with the game at the same time. It is much easier to play this way if you already know the song and it will be very hard to memorize the riffs if you are only learning them from the game. I believe that Rocksmith would be a more complete training program if Ubisoft included a book where you could learn the songs and concepts outside the game and then test your knowledge and skill when you are playing.

For Those About To Rocksmith. . .

Rocksmith is not for everyone, but for those looking to begin the lifelong journey of learning to play guitar, I highly recommend this game. Despite my problems with the interface, Rocksmith does of a solid job of teaching the basics and will quickly have you playing along with some of the world’s greatest artists. Seasoned guitarists might get frustrated at the process of working their way to the most challenging levels for songs, but they will benefit from the mini games which will help strengthen their skills. Just remember the old adage - practice makes perfect. This game is not a fast pass to guitar hero status, but it will put you on the right track and show you a good time along the way.

Comments are Closed

game is not designed for beginers how do they expect a beginer to play surf hell i am not alex lifeson or trying to be . i cant afford enough coke to move that fast the game will probably end up as target at rifle range

Great game with and very helpful even to advance guitar players(it's not like they know all these songs) good way to learn and improve.

"Should come with chord books and lessons to work on outside the game"?not really... you want to stop playing/practicing on the game so you can practice outside the game then just buy a book with lessons (which i don't think would be as good as the game)

"Learning guitar takes a lot time, patience and practice" shouldn't be on the Cons... it's not the game's fault...

I've been playing this game for a couple of weeks, and I'm having a lot of fun with it. I am a drummer and have messed around on guitar but never taken lessons or learned any songs. I'm finding this game is helping me progress quite a bit. Some notes:

- I'm having the delay issue too (I'm using HDMI from my xbox to my receiver for audio and video contratry to the recommendations - I couldn't be bothered to set things up differently for this one game). But, I've gotten used to the delay so it's not really an issue

- The game seems to sometimes mis-read some of my fretting, especially around the first few frets

- I have some trouble getting it to pick up muted notes sometimes

- I could do with a bit more theory

- I wish they found a way to use more tabulature-style notation and I find that when the display pans along the fretboard, I get confused about what frets I'm supposed to be on.

- If you want to play the same exercise or song repeatedly, it still reloads everything each time. This is really frustrating, although saving to the xbox HD helped a bit

- The delay issues seemed to be improved by the update a week or two ago

- The guitar and amp sounds (and effects) work pretty well

Desipte my gripes I am really liking this "game". I wouldn't really consider it a game. Given the fact that it doesn't use proper notation or tabulature, I'm not sure if it would be good for an experienced guitarist, but for a newbie like me it's a great way to learn some real songs.

I have the game and it is AWESOME i am a beginner and it is just fun to learn i had guitar lesson some yrs ago but stop and this game is doing a good job at teaching me the basic without a teacher !!!!! if u are a advance player then i doubt this game can teach u anything but if u are get it , for fun . beats a plastic guitar and some color pad to push down on !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!

If your turned off to making the purchase based on the track playlist alone, then please reconsider!! I bought rise of the six string and regret it, played the same 6 song over and over, thinking DLC! It's coming, it's coming and never did, Due to the game bombing! Hell in a couple weeks my girl was singing song neither of us even like due the track list! This game sounds to be alot better then six string ("sounds" I have not purchased yet but I am goin to)One thing six string was missing was the actual real training and educational aspect and a tuner, I had to base my guitar tuning on my own ears, and I can't play! So not only is this an major added benifet but something that was defiantly needed! So if there ever was a time to not holdout this is it!! Think about it the Simon says red blue green & yellow guitar hero/rock band have whole games dedicated to single bands, this didn't happen because it taught you how to play the guitar! It happen because Sales were $670.7 million and 1 million downloadable song purchases every 9 days! Guitar hero's gross revenue was like 2 billion world wide, so I'm begging you as a future rocksmith tweeker, PLEASE give this game a chance, so when you give up and break the guitar like the rock god that you should be, sales will be so high I will have the option with many others to download the songs we want to play and not have to play over and over and over!! Let's give this game a chance that its giving us! Thank you and that will be all. -GO BUY ROCKSMITH-

I bought this game on the day of release, and I feel like I can actually justify playing it every day as a practice session. I normally won't touch a game during the week because in my mind it is a waste of time (having a demanding job, family, etc.), and I try to limit that kind of down time to weekend evenings. With this game, however, I'm actually gaining real-life benefits from playing it.

On the playing mechanics, I can say without hesitation that this game is fantastic. It is making me a better guitarist simply because it makes practice enjoyable and useful, and I actually look forward to playing it. Best of all, no guilt!

I have to import this unfortunately since I live in Australia but I'm buying it to learn how to play guitar properly. I can play a little Greenday but suck at guitar solos. I'm hoping to get better at the guitar from this game and after reading this review I can tell I'm on the right path with the least expense.

Bought the game yesterday. Was pumped to get started until I realized my 3 years old son used all of my picks as ninja stars and lost them all. That's what I get for taking six months off from practice.

First off, great review. I was slightly confused as to how this game was supposed to accomplish what it set out to do. I'll admit that that's partially because I just assumed it was a simple Guitar Hero/Rockband rip-off with a different hook, but it's nice to see that I was wrong in that regard.

Second, and this isn't really a huge deal, but I felt the need to throw it out there: I was some of the people who thought that Microsoft was "throwing money at G4" would read this review. The picture with the guy on the couch playing the game? That's a PS3 he's playing. If MS really *was* paying G4, that picture would most likely feature a 360. Case closed.

Im going to pass on this one. The song selection is not in my taste, and the songs i do like on this game i already know how to play. I think its an awesome idea and tool for learning how to play however. Just buy the Rock band pro guitar :P

I was one of those people who had a guitar sitting in a corner gathering dust. I tried to go the self-taught route, and bombed - I just didn't have the self-discipline. I wholeheartedly agree with most of the points made, although the interface didn't bother me as much.

Love the fact that the game doesn't boo you into oblivion because you're an amateur.Love the self-adjusting difficultyLove the "you're here to learn, dammit" approach. Even if they aren't that flashy, the graphics get the job done, while keeping the experience fun and engaging.

Thank you Shub for the review, and THANK YOU Ubisoft for giving us gamers a learning tool that we should have had for friggin' years already!...

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